Arafura Sea

Arafura Sea

Just west of the Torres Strait, the ship sails through the Arafura Sea en route to Darwin. During the last ice age, when ocean levels were much lower, the Arafura Sea didn’t exist. The shallow continental shelf was above water, and the Torres Strait Islands were simply hills along a land bridge that connected Australia to Papua New Guinea. It’s likely that the first migration of humans to Australia—the ancestors of modern-day Aborigines—happened here.